


Cleaning My Way Into Your Heart!

by hungusst



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24230080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungusst/pseuds/hungusst
Summary: Goro Akechi is an accountant at Okumura Foods HQ, working on orders from Shido Masayoshi to take down the company from the inside and bring Shido to power. Of course, Goro plans to overthrow him at the last minute, but until then he'll be the angriest, most sleep-deprived employee his co-workers have ever seen. His life is boring and slow, but when a new janitor suddenly appears at the office, everything quickly goes to shit.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 108
Kudos: 564





	1. Chapter 1

If they ever got to know him, most of Goro Akechi’s co-workers would probably think that he wakes up frowning every morning. This would be an inaccurate assumption; Goro starts frowning 5 seconds _after_ he wakes up and realizes he has to go back to work again. 

(This scenario depends on one of Goro’s co-workers actually “getting to know” him, which Goro would never allow to happen, so he throws out the entire train of thought along with the voice in the back of his head suggesting that he give up on his life entirely and go back to sleep.)

It’s still dark outside. Goro sits up and groans; his joints and the cheap bed frame groan with him. He blindly feels around for his phone and unlocks it, eyes absently skimming across his notifications. Most of them are from his work email, and - oh cool, he’s got 3 unread text messages from Shido. Goro violently hurls his phone at the wall and it shatters into a million metal bits, _the floor catches fire, the walls crack and collapse on top of him, and that’s okay because this means I probably won’t have to go to the office today -_

Goro carefully locks his phone and places it back on his nightstand. 

He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. _I need coffee._

The coffee he makes tastes like water. 

\--- 

Four years ago, after Goro Akechi graduated from one of top universities in Tokyo, he was approached by a threatening-looking salaryman with a plastic smile, knowledge of the Metaverse, and lofty promises of power and money. Four years ago, with ulterior motives unbeknownst to Shido Masayoshi, Goro made a deal that would net him all of that and then some. 

Four years later, Goro heads into the Okumura Foods for his 647th day as a fucking accountant of all things. 

The elevator up to Goro’s office floor has a capacity of 20 people, but somehow 30 manage to cram their way into the little hell box every trip up. He’s packed into the corner next to a woman with a wet cough and a man emitting an indescribable odor. 

Goro feels like a sardine. A sleep-deprived, murderous sardine. 

When the elevator doors finally, mercifully open on his floor, he briskly exits the metal lift of death and promptly bumps into his department’s boss, because that might as well be something that happens today, right? Unflinching, Sae Nijima fixes him with a hard stare and offers him a nod.

“Goro...from accounts, right?” 

“Ah, Sae-san.” He brushes the dust off his coat with his free hand, vaguely annoyed that his superior appears to not remember his face after two years of them working together in the same office. “Sorry about that.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Sae turns on her heel, cutting off the conversation as quickly as it began, scrutinizing something on her cell phone. “Work hard today. Okumura wants that report on his desk by the end of this week.” 

"Of course," Goro replies, smiling warmly. As soon as she turns the corner and disappears out of sight, it twists into a sneer. Okumura? Please. That’s the last person either of them will need to be worried about once Shido gives him the order to - 

Too late, he realizes that resident office idiots #1 and #2 are gaping at him from their desks like dead fish. Ann quickly looks down and pretends to be busy once he turns around. Ryuji makes a startled noise that he tries to play off as a cough. Ann hisses at him and thwaps his head with her office planner. Vaguely, Goro wonders how they’ve managed to keep their jobs here for this long.

Whatever. They’ve seen worse from Goro. (He’s still trying to forget the donut incident from June.)

Goro walks up to his desk. It is usually completely empty and pristine, save for his monitor, a keyboard, and a neat stack of paperwork that is bound to get messier as the day progresses. However, there was something out of the ordinary today.

Placed delicately atop his well-used keyboard is a small pink lollipop. 

Goro looks around, his brows furrowed and his lips pressed into a thin line. Was this a prank? What is the meaning of this? Which fiend in here would do something like that?

He picks up the wrapped candy and gives it a once-over. Raspberry Cheesecake Cookie flavored. It is sure to taste like chemicals and preservatives. The idea that someone would think that he would enjoy a gift like this makes his face twist into a grimace. Was it the budget guy? Was Sakamoto taking a jab at him?

“Niijima?” Goro speaks, loud enough for the General Manager to hear him. Makoto Nijima doesn’t reply, continuing her email or whatever the hell she writes in her free time. “What is this?”

“The lollipop? That’s from the Janitor,” Niijima retorts coldly, not looking up from her computer.

The janitor? Goro’s scowl only darkens at the thought. An old lady with a crooked back and chronic osteoarthritis instantly comes to mind. The woman can barely walk properly, let alone clean, and she definitely hates him for leaving his coffee mugs around the desk. Why would the janitor give him something like this?

As if she can hear the gears turning in his head, Niijima speaks again.

“The new Janitor. The old one was fired.”

Goro blinks. A new recruit. In that case, the lollipop was probably a peace offering. A shitty gift given to all the employees in the rotten hellhole of the Okumura Foods Company. Somehow, the thought of that irritates him even more. 

Goro throws the lollipop away.

\---

“Oi, have you met the new janitor?”

  
Goro’s ears perk up at that line. 

“Nope, I haven’t.” Ann cups her left cheek in one hand, flipping through a magazine on company time. “Why do you ask?”

Ryuji grins, holding up a milk box. “Pretty cool guy. He went around givin’ everyone gifts this morning.” 

“Oh! So that’s why…” Ann grabs at the pile of junk on her desk and comes out holding a piece of strawberry candy. “...I found this on my desk!” She pops it in her mouth. “Have you talked to him?

“ _Talk_ to him? Dude, you have no idea what hhhh-” Ryuji very pointedly glances over at Goro, stretching out the syllable before it can form the rest of his sentence. “-hhhhyeah. He’s cool.” He leans over and whispers at Ann, “ _I’ll tell you about it later.”_ (Goro hears him say this clearly, because Ryuji doesn’t know how to whisper.)

“What’s he look like? Is he cute?” Ann pushes her magazine to the side and leans forward conspiratorially. Goro’s never seen Ann take anything more seriously than gossip; it’s probably why she chose social media as a career. 

Ryuji's face scrunches up. “Uh, I wouldn’t say that. He wears these big black glasses and he’s got this crazy black hair that covers his eyes.” Ryuji slouches in his chair, contemplating. “Kind of nerdy looking.”

(Goro thinks back to his high school biology teacher, a bespectacled man in his late 60’s with dyed black hair and a nasty smoker’s lung. He makes a mental note of that profile so he can avoid the new office Santa moving forward.) 

Ann narrows her eyes and pouts, clearly not satisfied with the description. “Not what I was asking, Ryuji. Is the guy our age, or...” Ann’s voice dies in her throat, and Goro spends a single second celebrating the silence before he realizes why she stopped talking. 

Goro looks up to discover the source of the interruption. Oh, gross, it’s Kamoshida, making a beeline for Ann’s desk. Ann grimaces and attempts to hide behind her magazine. He looks down at his desk again. People in the office may not care for Goro’s general demeanor, but if they were all stuck on an island with no food he’s pretty sure that Suguru Kamoshida would be the first person they’d vote on cannib- 

“Ann! How’s your weekly media report going?” 

Ann’s voice goes up a pitch. “Ah, Kamoshida-san, thanks for checking in! It'll be done by the end of the day.” 

“Good, good to hear. Feel free to work overtime if you need to get it done. I can stay behind and keep the office open for you if you’d like some company,” says the sludge creature. 

Ann offers him a bright, noncommittal hum of acknowledgement, angling her body as far away from Kamoshida as humanly possible. He turns on Ryuji next. 

“Sakamoto, you’ll be financing that check we talked about earlier, right?” Kamoshida smiles, barely bothering to hide the malice in his tone. “I trust there’ll be no issues with that.” 

Goro starts as he hears Ryuji stand up, and spares a glance to the side to see the expression he’s making. Huh, Ryuji looks pissed. Is idiot #1 finally trying to get himself fired? 

“Yeah, for sure.” Ryuji spits, rebellion bleeding into his words. “No issues at all.” 

Kamoshida fixes Ryuji with a sneer. “Tch. Watch your tone, Sakamoto. Okumura Foods is no place for delinquents like you.” He gives everyone at the table an angry once-over and storms around the corner, out of sight.

Goro exhales a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Goro’s been watching Kamoshida pushing Ryuji around for the better part of a year and he’s never seen Ryuji stand up to him before. 

“ _RYUJI!_ ” Ann hisses. “What the hell are you doing!?” Her magazine has crumpled under her nervous grip. “We’re gonna pay for that too!” She buries her head and her hands and groans miserably. “Jeez, the entire department is going to suffer for that. Think about Mishima!” 

Ryuji falls back into his seat, looking triumphant. “Relax. Don’t worry about it,” he snickers, crossing his arms. “Tomorrow that bastard’s finally gonna pay up for all the shit he’s put us through.” In his two years of working alongside Ryuji, this is the most confident that Goro's ever seen him.

Wow. Ryuji’s actually trying to get fired. 

Ryuji notices Goro scrutinizing him and his grin dissolves into an embarrassed little frown. “What? Do I got somethin’ on my face?”

“You guys are too loud. Shut up.” Goro turns away and focuses on a spreadsheet, mentally preparing to ignore everyone for the rest of the day. 

\---

Goro groans as a sharp pain in his head makes itself known by violently stabbing his gray matter with what he presumes is a red-hot poker. He presses his hand to his temple. It does little to soothe the headaches. It wasn’t uncommon for Goro to get migraines, what with years of sleeping about 4 hours a day, 6 if he got lucky. 

He takes another swig of his coffee, emptying the mug of its contents. He sighs, resting his head on his palm, nuzzling into it softly. _I need a break_.

Standing up and trying to ignore the violent wave of nausea that hits him, he shambles slowly towards the break room, rubbing his temples along the way. His eyes fall shut, and Goro groans again at his poor throbbing brain.

“Wh-” 

Goro looks up curiously, and immediately smashes head-first against a navy-blue blur of a person. He yelps, stumbling back and falling to the floor, his migraine only worsening at the impact. He grabs at his forehead, letting out a particularly loud groan that is sure to grab the office’s attention. His buttocks ache at the impact against the hard concrete floor, the dull pain shooting up his (probably) nearly broken spine. Goro, in that moment of vulnerability, wonders if a new crack has formed on his ass.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” A voice mumbles at him, and Goro grits his teeth. What kind of half-hearted apology was that?

His eyes finally open, and he takes in the sight before him.

A young man, surely no younger than Goro, stares down at him. The pair of glasses perched on his nose bridge reflects off a convenient ray of light, hiding the eyes of his assailant. Goro lets his eyes wander and take in his appearance (after all, he would need a description to report him to the police).

Oh. This must be the new janitor. 

He’s wearing a loose, dark blue jumpsuit, secured with a black belt at the waist and a blue baseball cap on his head. A mess of black curls covers his glasses. He’s holding an old mop in one hand, the other held up in an apologetic gesture. 

“Um,” the man says. “Sorry about that.” He offers Goro a small smile. “Who built the door to the break room in the middle of a walkway, am I right?” 

Goro’s so done with today that he almost forgets to get angry at this chucklefuck. Almost. 

“Ah." Goro's voice is icy. He winces slightly as he eases himself off the hardwood floors. “I didn’t realize Okumura Foods was letting blind, uncoordinated rats take shelter in this building.” As Goro straightens his posture, he feels something smug in his gut when he realizes he’s got about an inch of height on the guy. “How charitable of them.” 

The janitor stares dumbly back at him, his mouth hanging open slightly in a little “o”. Goro frowns. He'd just used the tone he usually reserved for threatening his targets in Mementos, and all this guy was giving him was an “o”. 

Goro lays it on thicker, glaring directly at him now that they’re at eye level. “Oh, and while I’ve got you here, I’d like to ask you to not leave your _garbage_ on my desk anymore. The rest of the office might be eating up your sentimental bullshit, but I don’t take kindly to finding random shit in my designated work area.” 

“Oh, right, the lollipop,” the janitor murmurs, playing with a piece of his fringe and peering up at him thoughtfully. He’s not even breaking eye contact. They might as well be talking about the weather. 

Goro stares back.

There’s a reason the employees at Okumura Foods stay away from Goro Akechi. Every office has a grumpy, sleep-deprived accountant that abuses the community coffee machine at the break of dawn. But behind all of that, Goro has **seen** shit. When he clocks out of the office, he clocks into infiltrating the underbelly of Tokyo, into singling out the people Masayoshi Shido has considered a nuisance and silently removing them from the company. It’s not easy to hold down a job anywhere nowadays, and Goro remembers that every time he’s ordered to bring another employee to their knees in Mementos, brainwashing them into resigning up above. 

He’s a corpse on legs most days, sure, but beneath it all there’s a withering anger deep in his chest, sharp and cold and biting. It burns the edges of his words and bleeds into the way he carries himself. He’ll turn all of that anger on Shido one day, but for now he’ll use it as a deterrent against anyone who even considers getting close to him. His co-workers have no idea what he’s up to when he leaves the office every evening, but all of them have managed to muster up the common sense to **stay the fuck away from him.**

Until today. 

The new janitor, a frizzy-looking _rodent_ with hair covering his face and a fucking mop in his hand, is staring directly through him like it’s absolutely nothing at all. What the hell? 

There’s a storm brewing behind his eyes, and where Goro expected to, _hoped_ to find trepidation, he’s instead feeling the janitor’s thoughtful gaze piercing straight through him like a bullet. He’s digging past the corners of his vision like Goro’s a puzzle he’s going to solve the moment he lets his guard down, all dark pupils and slate-grey irises and pretty long lashes and - 

“Not a fan of sweets, huh?” 

“Never speak to me again.” Goro turns on his heel and power-stomps away from the janitor as quickly as possible.

\--- 

Akira watches the angriest, sleepiest, prettiest man he’s ever seen power-stomp away from him as quickly as possible.

 _Wow_. How about Goro from accounts, huh? (Akira’s already memorized a list of names and faces of everyone working here.) 

Akira returns to his work, whistling as he continues mopping up a particularly stubborn stain on the hardwood floors of the office corridor. That was one hell of a fall; Akira would’ve made sure the guy was actually okay if said guy hadn’t proceeded to whip around and tear into Akira like he was a warm bag of fast food after he'd been on a diet for a month. Damn, what an angry dude. Akira thinks back to an article Futaba showed him last week about violent wild boars. 

Throughout his extremely unprofessional and always-impromptu career as a phantom thief, Akira’s taken on a number of odd occupations to get the intel he needs on his targets. This janitor gig isn’t his first fake job, and it won’t be his last, and by no means is it the strangest thing he’s ever done while going undercover. There’s something interesting about Okumura Foods though, about the way Ryuji Sakamoto didn’t hesitate to join him in the fight against Kamoshida’s lackeys in the Metaverse, about the veil of normalcy in the office that feels like it could shatter into pieces at any given moment. He sees its cracks in Ryuji’s fury, in Ann’s worried kindness, in the untapped potential of the employees that Akira hasn’t even spoken to yet.

And, interestingly enough, beneath the chaotic hurricane of knives that constitutes the guy’s personality, Akira’s got an alarm going off on his head that’s telling him that there’s way more to Goro Akechi than he’s letting everyone here in on. 

Akira grins at the floor, placing the mop back in its bucket and rolling away to clean the next area. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! hungusst is the unholy combination of @hephasst and @buuungus (twt) joining forces to write stuff. this will have multiple chapters, but i don't know how to add a chapter count to the top. please leave us a hate comment down below!
> 
> heph: "we worked really hard on this please dont listen to bun and dont leave us a hate comment below i would like it if you send us lots of love"  
> bun: "the title of this story was heph's idea. please leave us a hate comment down below!"


	2. Frozen Pizza and Bathroom Stalls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bun: "heph has informed me that you're not allowed to eat food on the japanese subway so please suspend your disbelief for that section of the intro thank you"  
> heph: "uh S swag leave nice comment i love you all muah ❤️"

“This place looks dull. Do I really have to start working here this week?” 

“Do it for the team, Morgana.”

“Ugh. Is this Kamoshida’s desk?” 

“Should be.” 

“Alright. I guess we’ll just leave the card here then.”

“Mm.” 

“Think the change of heart will go well? This scumbag’s palace was really something else.” 

“We’ve got two new people on our side now, and the three of us have managed on our own for a while. I think the fight will actually be easier this time.” 

“You’re right about that. All right, let’s regroup with the others. The Phantom Thieves’ infiltration of the Okumura Foods company begins here; we’re all counting on you, Leader!” 

Under the cover of midnight, the janitor sneaks out of Okumura Foods HQ with a cat hidden in his backpack.

\--- 

By some scientific miracle, the combined forces of the inside of the train to Shibuya and what feels like the entire Japanese population have created a perfect recreation of the humidity levels of the Amazon River Basin, localized entirely within the subway car that Goro has been crammed into on this shitty, shitty Thursday morning. 

Goro picked up a pair of discount headphones from a convenience store last week. At least he gets to listen to smooth jazz while he’s in hell. 

There’s a guy next to him eating a Big Bang burger for breakfast. Goro contemplates vomiting. There’s something unsettling about seeing the endpoint of his current line of work put to action in front of him; he’s not sure if it makes him want to laugh or scream. Goro’s really been filling out spreadsheets for 650 days straight so this guy on the train can eat a motherfucking _hamburger_ in the _morning_. 

Goro wonders how anyone can stand working for Okumura Foods without some sort of ulterior motive. Some mornings, he wonders how _he_ can stand working for Okumura Foods at all. He’s crunched the numbers on how much betraying Shido will benefit him financially, but he never thought to calculate just how many years this train that holds more sweat-mist than it does oxygen is shaving off of his lifespan every morning. 

His shirt is sticking to his body, he can’t breathe, and some woman just shifted her arm and ripped the headphones out of his ears. The smooth jazz stops abruptly. Goro wistfully thinks about murder. 

When the train finally, mercifully arrives in Shibuya, Goro shoulders his way through the sea of bodies and promises himself for the 400th morning in a row that tomorrow’s the day he’s going to start biking to work. 

\---

Goro blinks.

Today, sitting atop his comically tall pile of paperwork is a single slice of microwaved pizza, placed precariously on a too-small paper plate. (At least, Goro assumes it has been microwaved. Actually, it looks like it may have been thawed out at room temperature, what with the small pool of water gathering at the bottom of the plate.)

Goro feels anger bubbling from the pits of his stomach.

He lifts the plate off of the paperwork, glaring at it with as much venom as he can muster. Hawaiian. The pieces of frozen pineapple, scattered precariously on top of slices of thin turkey ham, look just like icing on a cake. Poisonous icing atop a layered cake made of razor blades. The idea that the janitor would’ve had to buy a full frozen Hawaiian pizza to produce a single slice for him makes him even angrier. 

He then notices a post-it note stuck onto the bottom of the plate. Tearing it off with more force than was probably necessary, he stares daggers at the offending piece of paper.

**YOU LIKE?**

The words are scrawled out in full capital letters, and Goro can physically feel the janitor mocking him through the piece of paper. 

Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy. _Actually_ fuck this guy.

\---

“Kamoshida has resigned.”

Goro glances up at Sae with a start, taking his headphones out of his ears. Sae lets out a quiet snort when she makes eye contact with him. Surely the expression that Goro has on right now is very...telling.

“Why?” 

“He burst into an upper-management meeting yesterday and started confessing to his own workplace misconduct. Something about feeling guilty for hazing his subordinates and harassing women in the office,” Sae says, before placing a hefty stack of papers on Goro’s desk. Goro’s plastic smile falters as they hit the table. “It’s none of our business. This just means we have more work to do now that he’s gone.”

God, does Goro hate his job.

“Not to worry, however. There’s a new employee today. You should have a conversation with him.” Sae says.

_Not a chance._

“His name is Morgue. Apparently it’s a French word.” Sae absently flips through the employee file in her hand. “The janitor’s told me it means ‘blue flower.’ The two of them are cousins.”

Goro studied English in college. The last time he checked, a morgue was a respectable establishment where people stored dead bodies. 

“Well, make sure you introduce yourself to the new employee. Keeping office morale high will improve our productivity levels.”

_Sure it will._

“Thank you Sae-san!” Goro shoots her another winning smile. “I’ll be sure to talk to the new employee.”

Goro’s eyes wander away from Sae’s stern expression to the section of cubicles behind her. The new hire in question, a young man with dark blue hair and light blue eyes, is hunched over his desk, clenching and unclenching his hands in a way that looks like he’s just discovered that he too was born with thumbs and fingers. 

_I will not be talking to the new employee._

Goro continues smiling as Sae sighs, turning to walk back to her office. The smile dissolves as soon as she’s out of sight. 

A growing sense of dread is churning at the bottom of his stomach.

Why did Kamoshida resign?

It was no secret that Kamoshida enjoyed harassing people in the office. It’d been going on for so long that everyone had gotten used to it. His demeanor aside, Kamoshida had been the HR manager, and a pretty damn good one at that. He’d recruited countless brilliant people into the office, and everyone knew that no matter what they reported him for, it would probably never get the man fired. 

Kamoshida loved his job, and there was no way he would’ve given it up just like that.

Somehow…this feels like a familiar scenario.

Goro is promptly derailed from his train of thought when Ryuji starts yelling about a spider on his desk. He retreats back into his headphones, drowning out his co-worker’s peril along with any fleeting suspicions starting to form in the back of his mind. 

\--- 

Goro is peacefully enjoying a balanced lunch of watery coffee and stale biscuits when Mishima from HR loudly enters the break room with Ryuji and Ann in tow. 

“And then he called me out of the blue last night, crying and apologizing for everything! Have you ever heard Kamoshida _cry_ before?” 

Mishima from HR. Outside the social sphere of his two noisy desk-mates, Goro has allocated exactly enough energy towards knowing one singular fact about everyone else in the office. Mishima’s designated fact in Goro’s mind is that nobody likes Mishima. He shoves his earbuds in and continues eating. 

Ryuji laughs loudly through the sandwich in his mouth as he deposits himself onto the break room couch. Lettuce is spewing everywhere. “Damn, I haven’t! Serves that bastard right!” 

“ _Ryuji!_ ” Ann has finally noticed Goro rotting in the corner and is now frantically trying to cover Ryuji’s mouth. 

Mishima barrels on. “Isn’t it weird though? Kamoshida was like a different person when I was talking to him. How does anyone change that quickly, right? What do you think about it, Goro from accounts?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ann’s frantically looking between him and Mishima like they’re going to report her for first degree murder, and Ryuji suddenly looks very interested in eating his sandwich. Goro’s eyebrows furrow slightly. 

_...Did they threaten the guy?_

Goro recalls an incident about a month ago where Ryuji and Ann spent an entire afternoon trying to figure out how to replenish the staples in a stapler. After three hours, they gave up and Ann ended up attaching her papers together with a thumb tack. 

_No, there’s no way in hell they figured out how to do that._

“Mishima, I think-” Goro swallows another bite of biscuit, “-that you should be focusing on the tasks he left behind in HR so the rest of us don’t have to carry your sorry ass through the rest of this quarter.” 

\---

The golden-orange light of dusk filters through the windows of the office. As the light slowly mellows, Goro takes a glance at the time on his desktop. His shift is almost over. Goro feels his eyes falling shut, but he refuses to give in to the sleep goblin that’s threatening him to sleep overnight in the office _again._

Goro stands up, the joints in his back popping one at a time as he straightens his back. He feels like he’s at least 55 years old. He decides to hit the bathroom one more time before checking out for the day. 

The restroom: the overworked office worker’s safe haven. He picks the stall furthest from the door and settles in. Goro has no intention of actually using this facility for its intended purpose; no, he’s going to spend 10 minutes in here playing solitaire on his phone unless he has a text from Shi - oh good, he has a text from Shido. 

It’s a list of five names, signed off at the bottom with a simple message. 

**S** : Get it done tonight. 

Goro grits his teeth. 

Shido has been subtly hiring undercover workers at Okumura Foods for a few years now. What began with a fresh-out-of-university Goro Akechi steadily grew into an entire network of people, lined up like dominos to be financially coerced or blackmailed into destroying the company from the inside. Of course, Shido regularly covered his tracks (by giving Goro really fun overtime assignments) so nothing could ever be traced back to him, so he had lots of people set up in a lot of places. 

Another text comes through. 

**S** : Did you make a mistake?

 **Akechi** : No

Apparently, Kamoshida was one of those people. 

**S** : Make sure this doesn’t happen again. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what will happen if you fail.

 **Akechi** : Understood

Some days, the visual of Shido as a washed-up nobody on the streets, watching Goro take his rightful seat at the top of Okumura Foods and all of its properties, is all that keeps Goro going. Some days, even that’s not enough. Maybe Goro should just become a corn farmer. 

Goro stands, seriously considering dropping his phone in the toilet and fleeing the country to pursue his corn ambitions, when he hears someone else’s footsteps squeaking across the bathroom floor. He hadn’t even heard the door open. So much for his fortress of solitude. 

Bracing himself for the awkward co-worker to co-worker encounter that happens every time someone happens to witness Goro exiting a bathroom stall, he unlocks the latch and eases open the door. 

_Oh_ **_fuck_ ** _._

“Oh, Goro from Accounts. Fancy meeting you here,” the janitor greets him, his lips quirking into a small smile. “This must be fate.”

Goro’s eye twitches.

The janitor was most certainly _not_ here when Goro first entered the bathroom. In the 5 minutes or so that Goro took to check his phone, the janitor somehow managed to gather all of his cleaning equipment and place it on the filthy bathroom floor, and has now started washing the sink mirrors in total silence.

“My apologies, but I don’t have time to talk to you right now,” Goro seethes, heading towards the sink that’s the furthest away from the janitor and hastily washing his hands.

“So, you didn’t like my lollipop.” The janitor’s voice echoes through the small bathroom. “Was the pizza to your liking?”

Goro really doesn’t want to have this conversation with the janitor in the bathroom of all places.

“You somehow managed to choose the absolute _worst_ pizza flavor, janitor. I’m almost impressed.”

“Worst? Hawaiian pizza is delicious.” the janitor protests, amusement filling his every word.

Goro looks up to stare him down, scowling. He’s going to need something better than standard intimidation tactics to get Trash Boy Deluxe to start avoiding him in earnest, and he’s not sure what strategy he should be using to make that happen. He’ll take a shot in the dark this time. 

“What’s it like, having the lowest-level job at the company with the worst track record for career advancement in the country?” Goro’s voice is airy with just a hint of poison as he turns the faucet and shakes the stray water droplets from his hands. “You’re awfully cheerful for a worker who’s clearly stuck at rock bottom.” 

The janitor laughs. “Aren’t you supposed to be the numbers guy, Goro from accounts? Janitors actually bring home a healthy paycheck if they’ve got a team to manage.” He finishes cleaning the last mirror with a flourish and flashes Goro a smile that could cure cancer. Elderly women across Japan probably can’t get enough of this guy.

Goro’s fucking _pissed_. 

“That’s a lot of optimism coming from an entry level employee, janitor. Rumor has it that the company axes its lower level staff members every quarter to keep costs down.” Goro turns towards the door, shooting the trash boy a condescending glance over his shoulder. “With a little luck, you’ll be gone by June.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” The janitor deposits his stupid rag in his stupid bucket and turns to Goro, casually slipping his hands in his pockets. “You see, I’m far too valuable to this company for them to fire me, Accounts-san.”

“Don’t call me Accounts-san.”

“I’m far too valuable to this company for them to fire me, Accounts-kun.”

Goro pinches the bridge of his nose and wills the janitor to turn into dust so he can finally leave this godforsaken bathroom. “What the hell are you talking about?” Goro really hadn’t meant to engage with this guy any further, but the janitor perks up at his response like a dog that just watched its owner drop a potato chip on the floor. 

The janitor’s grin morphs into something devilish. “The average janitorial worker can clean around 3000 square feet in an hour. Want to guess how much I can clean in the same amount of time?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Try 10,000.”

Goro stares at him flatly. “What the fuck?”

“Wanna know my secret?” The janitor leans forward conspiratorially, cupping his mouth to whisper something to Goro. “I use the vents.”

_“What the fuck do you mean ‘you use the vents?’”_

The janitor shakes his head and leans back. “Trade secrets, Accounts-kun. If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

Goro’s lip curls up a millimeter. “Trust me, if you keep being a prick I’ll beat you to that.”

“Haha, that’s hot.”

Jesus _Christ_. Goro turns on his heel and begins stomping away from the world’s most irritating human being for the second time in a week. This time, the janitor calls out to him while he's making his escape. 

“I’d really like to get to know you better, Accounts-kun. Ryuji, Ann, Morgue and I will be having dinner at Kurosaki tomorrow. It’s near Shibuya station; it’ll be my treat.”

That’s Goro’s favourite sushi restaurant.

“I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone, janitor.” 

Goro storms out of the bathroom, slamming the door shut as he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to iiLightic for telling us how to add a chapter count to the top SLKDJFKLJF


End file.
